Now that it has captured its Kurdish rebel, Turkey should seize the chance for compromise, not crowing

THE Turks are cockahoop. The man who for nearly 15 years has orchestrated a bloody revolt in the country's Kurdish south-east has been snatched abroad—in Kenya—and whisked back to Turkey to face charges of fomenting murder and mayhem. To listen to Turkey's politicians and to read its press, you would think that, with Abdullah Ocalan behind bars, the civil war, which has cost more than 30,000 lives, is all but over; that the Kurds have been definitively squashed; and that successive Turkish governments' misguided policy of denying the Kurds the right to express, however peacefully, a desire for some kind of self-government has been wondrously vindicated. Not true, any of it. A lasting peace can be forged only if the Kurds, especially but not only in Turkey, are given the fair deal that has so far been denied them (see article). In its moment of seeming triumph, the Turkish government would be wise to offer just such a deal. Then Turks and Kurds alike could look forward to a better future.

Mr Ocalan's capture certainly provides an opportunity for the reassessment on both sides that is needed before any settlement becomes imaginable. At first sight, it is true, the events of the past few days give little evidence that a spirit of reason or compromise can be applied to what is certainly a complex issue—one, indeed, that has plunged the Greek government into crisis, after allegations that some of its ministers had colluded in Mr Ocalan's entrapment. But, emotional and confusing as the kidnapping has been, it might just possibly prove to be a turning-point.

The 25m or so Kurds are perhaps the world's biggest stateless nation. They find themselves scattered across four countries—Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria—none of which is noted for polished human rights or fair treatment of minorities. The Kurds are unlikely to feel contented in any of these countries, even if their governments became models of moderation, without a generous measure of autonomy in the regions in which they predominate. That needs to be understood by those who now resist the Kurdish call for self-government. For their part, however, the Kurds need to recognise that there is no political room in the Middle East, at present or in the foreseeable future, for an independent state of Kurdistan.

For Kurdish nationalists, the Ocalan episode may have brought home that uncomfortable reality. It has shown the Kurdistan Workers' Party, better known by its Kurdish initials, PKK, how short it is of friends. Nobody, not even Greece, Turkey's eternal antagonist, wanted to give Mr Ocalan a haven. Turkey's army has been containing the Kurdish rebellion in south-eastern Turkey, where most of the country's 15m or so Kurds live. In the past year or two, the rate of killing has subsided. Emergency rule in several provinces has been lifted. In a wider context the balance of power has shifted in Turkey's favour, too. The United States still sees Turkey as a vital ally in its campaign to strangle Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And, by cosying up to Israel, Turkey has been able to squeeze Syria—which is partly why, last autumn, Mr Ocalan, who had long been based in Syria, was forced to seek exile elsewhere.

All this meant that, even before the snatching of their leader, Turkey's Kurds were having to rethink their aims and strategy. Some sign of that came in the more conciliatory tune that Mr Ocalan had begun to sing. It had not, however, beguiled everyone: Mr Ocalan has a brutal, capricious and autocratic record, even within his own movement. His arrest robs the PKK of a charismatic strategist, but at least it may allow the group to refashion itself in a more civilised, democratic and peaceful guise—and to renounce violent secession as a goal.

A place in, and for, Europe?

Why, though, should Turkey, boosted recently in the battlefield, bolstered by allies old and new, and flush with joy at Mr Ocalan's arrest, now change its policy and consider giving the Kurds the right of self-expression? First, because this latest change of fortune may not be decisive. Many of the remaining guerrillas will hunker down in their mountain fastnesses; they will not give up, not yet anyway. They may even turn to terror in Turkish cities farther west, where millions of Kurds have settled. Moreover, though Turkey's Kurds are by no means always friendly with their cousins in northern Iraq, the Iraqi minority now has the core of an autonomous entity there, under the protection of the same Americans who often seem willing to wink at the repression of Kurds in Turkey.

Also, Turkey should realise that it will never achieve its oft-stated goal of becoming a full member of the European Union until it shows a greater respect for the rights of its own citizens and the rule of law. In particular, Turkey will have to change its opposition to peaceful Kurdish desires for self-expression (such as the ability to run schools and make broadcasts in Kurdish) if it is ever to persuade the West that it is a full democracy. And, in the shortest run, the least Turkey can do is to ensure that Mr Ocalan is given a fair trial.

Outsiders can help. The Kurdish problem has now, de facto, been internationalised. Taking matters further, the European Union, with American backing, could offer a forum for Turks and Kurds to seek a compromise involving Kurdish self-rule in south-eastern Turkey, if that is what the Kurds want. For the moment, the Turks will reject such an idea. But the Kurds will not go away. If they are not to have a state, they deserve at least a modicum of self-government and justice.